


Have You Ever Been Experienced?

by voodoochild



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:52:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy has learned to ask for what she wants. Set post-"Shut the Door, Have a Seat", with spoilers for all of S3. Written for Porn Battle IX, for the prompt "terms and limitations".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have You Ever Been Experienced?

If she thought sleeping with Duck Phillips would give her a crash course in negotiation tactics - would let her say with perfect honesty "yes, I have, in fact, slept my way to the top" - she should have known it would be different with Don.

Don didn't feel the need to "woo" her (not when he'd already wooed her enough to get her to join SCDP), and he never did any of the things Duck did. Never bought her flowers, never surprised her with a nice lunch or a late dinner. She and Don ate deli sandwiches with the rest of SCDP, drank the silly fruit juices and bottled waters that Trudy bought. Don never took her to the theatre or the cinema, or out for walks in Central Park (God, being uptown was gorgeous), not like Duck.

What Don had to teach her wasn't to be flouted in public, not that she would have. She supposes it was something they were always, ever since the hospital and her child, since Bobbie Barrett and that jail cell, building toward. She supposes it was inevitable, because you can't work for Don Draper and not wonder what it would be like to have all that mystery, all that brilliant creative drive, focused on you.

The first time is as surprising as it is methodical, on his part. It's 2 am, they're the only ones left in the office - Don because he's living at the Pierre, Peggy because she gets her best ideas in the wee small hours and it's easier just to crash on the office couch - and she's perched on the desk, dictating into her recorder. Don's in the bedroom, pretending he's sleeping but in actuality just availing himself of Roger's Lagavulin.

"Coffee is essential in the morning," Peggy says into the microphone. "If you don't have your morning coffee, you're not at your best for the rest of the day. You don't function, your brain just stutters and stops."

"You're making it sound like a stroke," Don says, leaning against the doorway. "Do it again."

She rewinds the tape, resets it, and presses the record button again. "Coffee is the best part of the morning. The smell of the beans, the way it warms your hands as you sit at the kitchen table. That first sip - bitter and hot and smooth - and then, suddenly, the rest of the day doesn't seem so unbearable."

"You always do that."

"Do what?"

He takes a sip of whisky. "You start so high, note-perfect, everything we need in good copy, and then you end on such a sad note. Like you can't help but mention the downside. When you drink Folger's, your day shouldn't be 'unbearable'; it should be exciting, wonderful - the kind of thing that drinking coffee just makes you more invested in."

She doesn't say what they both know she's thinking: _What's unbearable is when it's been four months, we barely have any new accounts, Roger and Pete are going at each other's throats every two minutes, and the last three clients have dropped us because of our copy._

She stops the recorder and slides off the desk, crossing the room in her nylons (no one, not even Joan, wears shoes in the office after 5 pm). Don looks down at her in that way of his, like she's a lion that's suddenly jumped through a hoop on her own, and she takes the glass from his hand, knocks the rest back. It doesn't even burn anymore, because that's something else she's learned in these four months. How to drink scotch whisky and gin and tonics and bourbon instead of piss-awful beer or watery wine.

The burn is replaced with the scratch of his stubble as he pivots her against the wall and kisses her. Once, she might have squeaked in surprise - shy little country mouse Peggy Olson - but now, she's learned a little bit about what attracts a certain kind of men to her. She opens her mouth instead, tasting the whisky on his tongue, laughing a little as their teeth click together. He presses her to the wall and she lets him, legs tangled against his, one hand in his hair, tugging him closer.

They end up in the bedroom, her dress up around her hips and unbuttoned to the waist. They get both his shirts removed, but merely shove his pants and boxers off his ass. Peggy doesn't particularly care, because his hand is between her legs, tracing the snap of her garters, and Don just gives her a wicked smile as he moves her panties to the side and begins to touch her. She's usually not loud in bed, but she can't help it with Don - she's fairly sure she's not the only one, either - and he just works his fingers harder the louder she gets.

He makes her come with just his fingers inside her and his thumb against her clit, and pins her hands above her head when she goes to touch him in return.

"What do you want, Peggy?"

It's a loaded question. Not just asking her what she wants him to do to her, but what this means for their working relationship. She can be the latest in his long line of women, not even mistresses now that Betty's filed for divorce, and there's nothing wrong with that. They can be two people who know more than a little about each other who are just working off tension.

Or she can tell him what she really wants.

"Assistant creative director. Not just a copywriter."

"What makes you think you deserve it?"

She relaxes in his grip, looks him in the eye. "I'm just as good as you. Better, on certain accounts. Belle Jolie. Pampers. I'm the reason we got Easy-Bake Oven, and it's the only acquisition we've had since we started."

"True. We don't have the money to promote you, though."

"I don't want the money, I want your word."

He raises an eyebrow. "My word on what?"

"That I would be assistant creative director in name and duties. You introduce me as such when we meet clients, you include me in every single board meeting you've been excluding me from, and you let me take lead on accounts that aren't just 'women-related'. Cadillac, to start."

It's a lot to ask. Roger and Bert Cooper have been calling in every favor they possess to get meetings with Cadillac, ever since Hilton dropped Sterling-Coop and let it be known he didn't approve of the new firm. They've been storyboarding possible ideas for weeks, she and Don and Sal (who can't officially be on the payroll, but he's the best art director around even if Don won't admit it), and they're almost ready to present the campaign.

Don watches her for a long moment, then nods slowly. Sealing her fate. "You have it. Assistant Creative Director Peggy Olson."

Years down the road, when there's a ring on her finger but her name's on the agency door, she'll remember this moment as the one where she fell in love with Don Draper. Because he kept his word - assistant creative director - and together, they're unstoppable. Marlboro. Procter and Gamble. United Airlines. Marriot. Brooks Brothers. Kenmore.

And seven hours after they fell asleep in the bed (after thoroughly wearing each other out) and Joan came in to kick them out of what was now prime workspace, they nailed the Cadillac account.


End file.
